


a good cover story

by cateliot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: "I shot a superior officer in the chest", Bahrain, Episode: s01e07 The Hub, F/M, Mama May to the rescue, Pranks, old Melinda May
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 11:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5625367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cateliot/pseuds/cateliot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May rescues Simmons and Skye from their court martial after shooting Agent Sitwell.  After all, she and Barton have had some practice over the years talking themselves out of trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a good cover story

“Ah, finally a grown up,” Hand said with a heavy frown. 

Skye’s eyes were wide with relief as May entered the conference room followed by a skittering Simmons.  “That’s the one!”  Jasper Sitwell sat in front of the table with his glasses crooked on his nose.

“There you are,” May said smoothly looking directly at Skye, “Did you get it?”

Skye blinked quickly and her hand moved to her pocket and produced the only thing there:  her S.H.I.E.L.D. flashdrive. 

“Excellent.  Well it seems you and Simmons completed the exercise.  You can brief me on the complications back on the Bus.  We don’t want to bother Agent Hand any more than you already have.”

“What the hell is going on?”

May looked around plainly to all the suits staring at her in various states of confusion and tilted her head a little to the left. 

“Is there a problem?”

The male agent looked outraged. 

“Is the—yes there’s a—she shot me!”

May looked the erratic Jasper Sitwell up and down passively before turning towards back towards Victoria Hand.  “He seems in perfect health to me.”

It was clear that Victoria Hand was trying very hard not to smirk.

“How did I know you didn’t engineer this entire little thing like that incident in Dubai?  _You_ don’t even have clearance to be on that panel.”

May raised an eyebrow, obviously unimpressed by his testosterone tantrum.  Her hand tapped lightly on the touch screen pad on the table.  “May, Melinda Q. Code Alpha 078634.”  There was a sharp ding as the screen booted up on the back wall.  A large, mostly censored document loaded with a little level 8 icon near May’s name.  It was bright and spun around. 

All the eyes of the room fell on Sitwell who looked slightly astonished and angry. 

“That’s not possible.”

This seemed to be the end of May’s patience because she gave a very clear sigh, before—“We could call Maria Hill and continue this conversation with her.  Or better yet, we could get Director Fury on the line and you could explain to him that your agent is having a tantrum over being shot with a toy gun and now you are questioning the direct access he _personally_ granted me.”

May’s threat hung in the air.

“She was supposed to find the drive and extract the prudent information.  It’s a simple catch and release assignment.  Didn’t you do drills like this with your own SO, Sitwell?”

A single raised eyebrow punctuates the question perfectly.

“Not on restricted hallways!”

“Probably why you got shot by a level three SciOps graduate,” May spouted coolly. 

Now Agent Hand was having trouble keeping her face straight.  Her eyes scanned over the rest of the agents in the room.  Most of whom were in varying degrees of amusement.  Skye was grinning like Christmas had come early.  The only one who was perfectly horrified was Jemma Simmons.

“Shooting passerbys wasn’t part of the assignment, but she was clearly was thinking ahead—”

“Your students do tend to take after your lack of regards for the rules,” one of the other men around the table interjected.  May didn’t seem bothered by that.

“Obviously she’s no Romanoff, but you should give her credit—”

“You trained the Black Widow!” Skye squeaked and May shot her a glare.  The hacktivist shut her mouth quickly and her cheeks tinged red.  Meanwhile the woman at the head of the room sighed and leaned forward in her chair.

“This is just getting ridiculous.  Agent Sitwell is going to forget this little incident ever happened.”  It was clear that Hand’s statement was a command and not a question.  “And Agent May is going to promise to keep her rookie agents out of the Hub and prevent them from shooting superior officers.”

The two women exchanged a loaded glance. 

“Of course,” May said smoothly.  May’s hand was firm on Jemma’s arm as she pivoted towards the door.  Skye scrambled to follow her lead. 

“Melinda?”

May’s hand paused on the latch of the conference room door.

“It’s good to see you.”

A small smile washed over May’s face at the unspoken part of that sentence before pushing Jemma out of the room.  None of them spoke for the moments it took to reach the found in the main lobby.  May still hadn’t released Jemma’s arm and Skye was scrambling to keep up with the older woman’s pace.

“What just happened?”

Jemma paused, her fingers were still shaking.  May’s hand slipped off her arm and folded her arms across her chest.  The scientist gave a nervous giggle—and she had thought May wasn’t going to come help her.

“May just told the government to stick it!” Skye sounded thrilled as she skipped the last few feet to where Jemma and May were standing.

“Do that again and you’re on your own.”

 

::

 

Coulson’s hand brushed the small of Melinda's back as he approached her in the Bus’ kitchen.  The teapot was still steaming and the pleasant scent of black tea wafted from her cup.

“I just got the strangest email forward from Maria Hill,” he said smoothly, coming to lean on the counter next to his longtime partner.  “Three guesses what the video was about?” 

Her eyes didn’t stray from the tea she was brewing. 

“Sitwell started it.”

Coulson couldn’t help the laughter that escaped his throat. 

 _Typical Melinda_.  She once tampered with the entire Academy water supply adding sugar to the tank hat supplied the boy’s locker room showers.  She had caught John Garrett messing with one of the younger female recruits.  The sticky mess took weeks to fully clean up on anyone who was in the showers at the time, but Garrett never did it again.

“Well you surely ended it,” he teased

“Not as good at the New Years party of ’93 though.”

May turned around to glare at him. 

“Shut up.”

He grinned broadly.  “I think Skye would really like to hear that story—”

“If you feed the animals, I swear I will tell them about your birthday mission in London.”

The smile on his face was wipe off completely. 

For his thirtieth birthday Barton and May had conspired with an all too willing Fury to have him go undercover as male stripper in an underground bar.  Instead of his target being in the audience as he expected, the entire facility was filled with SHIELD agents in varying degrees of disguises.  Despite being the most embarrassed he’s ever been, he had to admit—the prank was pretty good.

“You wouldn’t.”

May raised an eyebrow, taking a sip of her tea.  “Don’t mess with me, Coulson.”

“You’re awful, you know that right.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes, but he could see a playful undertone in her eyes. 

“Please, I’m your dream come true.”

His eyes melted into hers, desperately trying to convey the absolute truth of the words she had just teased him with.

_“Yeah.  You are.”_

There was an awkward soft cough and his eyes immediately jumped to see slightly blushing Simmons standing at the edge of the kitchen.  May hadn’t turned.  Probably even heard her approach.   

“About the incident at the Hub, sir,” Simmons appeared at the edge of the kitchen, “Well Agent May seemed to…ah…smooth it over with Agent Hand, but I just wanted to personally let you know of just what happened in case—”

He and May shared a glance before he chuckled.

“Jemma,” he said shaking his head, “we really need to work on your cover story skills.”

He caught the smile that May valiantly tried to hide as she turned away, making her way back to the cockpit.  Maybe there was more of the _old Melinda_ left than either of them thought.


End file.
